Demetria Hester said Friday she was made to feel like the perpetrator, not the victim, when police arrived in May to investigate her report that a man on a MAX train had hurled racial taunts at her and threw a bottle at her face.

She was stunned to find out that police the next day arrested the same suspect, Jeremy Christian, after witnesses said he fatally stabbed two men and seriously wounded a third during a racial tirade against two teenage girls on another MAX train.

"I should feel safe in Portland. I don't,'' Hester said as she sat beside her pastor. "How can you feel safe if the police or TriMet are not there to protect you?''

The 42-year-old African American woman was headed home from her sous chef job at Po'shines Café De La Soul about 10:30 p.m. May 25 when she boarded the MAX Yellow Line on North Denver Avenue. She sat in her usual seat next to the train operator's door for safety.

Three stops later, a man stepped onto the train, called himself a neo-Nazi and was looking to recruit others, she said. He ranted that he hated blacks, Jews, Mexicans, Japanese and anyone who wasn't a Christian like he was, and that this was his country.

"And I had no right to be here, and I needed to go back to my country,'' Hester recalled at a news conference.

The man was later identified as Jeremy Christian.

Hester said she was coming forward now to give a detailed account of what happened "because of the president." Donald Trump has come under intense fire this week for blaming both sides for violence that erupted at a white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Va. last weekend.

Hester said she felt as if she were living back in the 1920s during the encounter with Christian. She urged the nation to come together and stand up to protect people of all types from hatred and bigotry.

At first, the man on the train that day sat with his back to her on the lower level of the light-rail car as she sat with her back to him on the upper level. Then he stood up and loudly spewed racial and ethnic slurs, she said.

Hester, the only black person riding in the car, spoke up.

"As a paid rider, I expressed, 'Would you please lower your voice? No one wants to hear you threaten or terrorize other people because of their gender, their race or who they were,' '' she recalled saying.

He cursed at her directly, "Fuck you Bitch!'' and said she didn't have the right to speak or be on the train.

She recalled him yelling: "I built this country. You don't have a right to speak. You're black. You don't have a right to be here. All you Muslims, blacks, Jews, I will kill all of you.''

Hester said she tried to get the train operator's attention. "I just sat in that seat and knocked on the conductor's door and received no response,'' she said.

The ranting continued as the MAX train traveled three more stops.

Hester planned to get off at the Rose Quarter to transfer to a Green Line train to head to her home in Clackamas.

Christian chose the same stop.

According to TriMet, the train's operator "immediately contacted'' the MAX command center and a TriMet supervisor was sent to meet the train.

As the train pulled up to the Rose Quarter station, Hester said Christian yelled that if anyone wanted to call the police, he wasn't scared and that he wasn't afraid to go to prison.

"I will kill anyone who stands in my way because I have a right to do this,'' she said he threatened. He also told her, "Bitch, you're about to get it now.''

Hester grabbed the mace she carries in her hand as she stepped off the train.

"He lunged at me with a Gatorade bottle and hit me in the right eye, and I sprayed him with mace,'' she said. "And he went down. There's at least 25 people walking around, not helping, not saying anything. ... I went over and kicked him in the groin as my eye was bleeding.''

She said two TriMet workers in white shirts were on the platform and watched the confrontation. She walked to a bench by the Green Line, sat down and saw Christian head to a nearby fountain and try to wash his face.

About 20 minutes later, a Portland police officer arrived.

Portland police said they were sent at 11:36 p.m. to the Rose Quarter Transit Station on a call about a disturbance between a man and a woman. Officer Neal Glaske saw people standing on the platform, including Christian, and asked if they had been involved.

But no one indicated they had, police said in a news release. Glaske didn't know Christian was a suspect, police said.

Glaske approached Hester, who was with two TriMet supervisors, according to police. TriMet supervisors don't have arrest authority.

"The police asked me what happened, and I expressed that's the person and pointed to (Christian), and so did another TriMet worker. (Glaske) yelled at both of us, and said, 'Let her tell the story,'" Hester recounted. "We tried to tell him the assailant was right behind him, washing out his face.''

She said Glaske told her that he had asked Christian if he had been involved and Christian had said he had nothing to do with it.

"I pointed again and said that is the man that assaulted me,'' Hester said.

But police, in a summary account of their response, said Friday that Hester didn't identify Christian as the suspect right away, though another witness did point to Christian as the man who had thrown a bottle of Gatorade at Hester. The officer, though, noted that Christian didn't appear to be concerned by the police presence.

"The officer asked the victim twice to confirm that Christian was the man who had assaulted her. The victim told the officer Christian was not the suspect both times,'' according to Sgt. Chris Burley, police bureau spokesman. Police aren't releasing their full report of the encounter because the case is still under investigation, they said.

Police said Hester's initial responses might have been due to the trauma she experienced.

Hester said the officer asked for her identification and she questioned why when her assailant was standing right behind him. The officer told her that he could get her name and information easier with her ID, she said.

By then, Christian had walked off. At that moment, according to police, Hester for the first time identified Christian as the man who assaulted her. The officer decided to follow Christian in his patrol car until another officer could provide cover for him, considering Christian was "a potentially violent suspect,'' police said, but by then, Christian was gone.

The officer returned to Hester to take a full statement, photograph her injury and recover the bottle thrown as evidence.

"How am I supposed to feel protected when we just watched him walk away? And you're arguing with me about who it was,'' she said she told the officer, when he returned. "He stated he did the best he could."

She took his card. When the officer asked her if he could help her further, she said she responded, "Catch him because he's going to harm or kill someone.''

Hester, surrounded by several faith and community leaders, said she was sickened to learn the next night that Christian had been arrested after witnesses and police said he stabbed three men in the neck who tried to intercede as he was lobbing racial slurs at two teenage girls on the MAX Green Line in Northeast Portland.

Hester doesn't have TV but was alerted to the stabbings by her work supervisor.

"My heart just dropped,'' she said.

"It was beyond disturbing. Words can't express how sad and just bitter I felt.''

Christian has pleaded not guilty to a 15-count indictment in the May 26 stabbings. He's accused of wounding Micah Fletcher, 21, of Portland and killing Ricky Best, 53, of Happy Valley, and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, 23, of Portland. Best died on the train. Namkai-Meche was pronounced dead at a hospital a short time later.

Four of the counts – intimidation, second-degree assault, unlawful use of a weapon and menacing -- stem from the confrontation with Hester. She said she heard back from police on the Tuesday after the Friday night stabbing.

"The Police Bureau understands the emotion and fear of hatred that has occurred in our community,'' said Acting Police Chief Chris Uehara. "We will continue to lift up, support and protect all community members.''

Roberta Alstadt, spokeswoman for TriMet, said, "Our thoughts are with Ms. Hester as well as those touched so deeply by the May 26 attack, and all those who struggle daily against hatred and bigotry.''